Advice of Counsel (The Samuel Collins Series Book 1)

by Trueman, Debra

“What happens now?” her father asked.

  “The case will go before the grand jury, probably within two to four months. Then, depending on what the grand jury decides, the case will either be no-billed, which means they dismiss it, or it will go to trial,” I said, speaking as objectively as I could.

  “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way,” her father said, “but we need to get Landra the best criminal lawyer around. I don’t care how much it costs.”

  “I agree. I’ve already put in a call.” He shook his head and looked away and I got the feeling that he would squash under pressure. I cleared my throat before I spoke. “I know this is very hard on you,” I said, “but I assume that you realize that Landra’s going to need you to be strong in order to help her through this.”

  I guess he thought I was being presumptuous because he gave me a shitty look, but Landra’s mother jumped in before he could say anything. I’d definitely hit a nerve.

  “We’ll all be there for Landra. I can assure you that,” she said.

  “Good,” I said.

  After what seemed like an eternity, they led Landra out and she came over and hugged me. “Thank you,” she said.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, looking her over.

  “Yeah. I’m okay.”

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  Her father stepped up. “Your mother and I want you to come stay at our house for a while,” he told her.

  As hard as I was trying to like Landra’s parents, it just wasn’t happening. Landra looked from me to her father and back to me.

  “It’s up to you,” I said. As much as I wanted to take care of her, I knew she wouldn’t let me. “You’re welcome to stay with me too,” I told her.

  “I’ll take a rain check,” she said, attempting a smile.

  I put my arm around her shoulder and hugged her to me as we walked to her parents’ car. “I put in a call to a friend of mine to find a good criminal lawyer to defend you,” I told her.

  Landra stopped walking and pulled away from me. “We’ve already been through this, Sam. You’re my lawyer.”

  “Then at least let me bring in someone as co-counsel.”

  “I’m not a criminal, Sam. And if you go out and hire the best criminal lawyer in town to represent me, what kind of message do you think that’s going to send? It’s going to make people think that I’m guilty and that I’m running scared,” she said. “Well I’m not guilty and I’m not going to make it look like I am. You’re a good lawyer, Sam. I know you are. And I trust you completely to defend me.”

  “No one’s going to think you’re guilty just because you hire a good lawyer,” I said. “They’ll just think you have money.”

  “You have my answer, so unless you’re refusing to be my lawyer, I don’t want to have this conversation again.”

  “Fine. Then I’m refusing to be your lawyer.”

  “No, you’re not,” she said, calling my bluff.

  “Okay, I’m not. But Landra, you have to be reasonable,” I started to say, but she didn’t let me finish my sentence.

  “Reasonable? How can you expect me to be reasonable when I’ve just been accused of murder? Murder, Sam. There’s nothing reasonable about this whole thing, so please don’t ask me to be reasonable.” She burst into tears and started crying uncontrollably. I pulled her to me and she cried into my chest while her parents just stood there watching.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I just want what’s best for you.”

  “You’re best for me.”

  I wasn’t going to argue the matter with her, as upset as she was. I knew it was a long shot, but I hoped that maybe she’d come around. For one thing, I was a potential witness in the case since I’d been the first one to find Landra after the accident. We hadn’t even discussed that, but it could very well disqualify me from representing her at all. But it was definitely not a good time to bring that up, so I kept my mouth shut.

  “You sure you don’t want to stay with me?” I asked.

  “No. I think its best if I stay with my parents for a few days. You know . . . stay away from the press and all.”

  “You call me if you need anything,” I said.

  “I will.” She hugged me and kissed me on the cheek.

  She got in her father’s car and I stood there until they drove off, then I went back to my office and collapsed back on the couch. The flowers didn’t work that time. Maddie got off the phone and smiled.

  “How was she?”

  “I think she’s holding up better than I am,” I said, and Maddie smiled.

  “Do you think it’s a good idea that you represent her?”

  “I think it’s a terrible idea, but at this point, I have no choice,” I said wearily.

  “I hate to tell you this, but Oliver is getting dropped off here in about two minutes,” she said.

  It was already almost 5:00 o’clock so I don’t know what she was worried about. “That’s not a problem. Actually, he’ll be a good distraction. No baby?”

  “Well,” she pronounced it whale, “I thought it would be nice to take Oliver out without the baby for a change. We never get to do anything just the two of us anymore. So I thought I’d let him pick a place to eat and just go hang out for a while.”

  “That’s nice. You’re a good mom, Maddie.”

  She smiled like she was embarrassed. “Why don’t you come with us? Like you said, he’d be a good distraction for you.”

  “You just told me that the two of you never get to be together,” I reminded her. “I thought that was the whole point of your going out.”

  “Whale, it’s not so much it being the two of us,” she said backtracking, “as it is that the baby’s not there. He has a tendency to monopolize my attention. That’s what it’s really about. So even if you were there, Oliver could still have my undivided attention, plus yours, for that matter,” she said cheerfully. “I’d like you to come with us, Samuel.”

  Oliver came barreling in the door and Maddie stuck her head out and waved to her mother as she drove off.

  “Hi, Samuel!” Oliver said.

  “Hi, Oliver. Did you tell your grandma about the snowmen you built?”

  “Yeah. When is it going to snow again, Mom?”

  “Probably in another 15 years,” Maddie said.

  I ended up going with the two of them to McDonalds, and Maddie and I sat there while Oliver played in the tunnels, then we went out for an ice cream on the way home. We were back by 8:00 o’clock, but it seemed much later. I called Landra at her parents’ house and she sounded amazingly good. In fact, she was practically consoling me. She gave me a pep talk and I felt a lot better when I hung up than when I had called her.

  Chapter 10

  I wasn’t really up for it, but I knew it would be a good distraction; so when Oliver invited me to go out to the river on Saturday with him and his mom, I reluctantly agreed. Landra was still in seclusion and I’d had back to back nights of drinking with my buddies that had left me feeling pretty seedy. I suggested we go to Guadalupe State Park instead of the spot where Maddie wanted to go. For one, it was closer; but more importantly, we could avoid the riff-raff that came with Maddie’s favored stretch of the river. I’d convinced Oliver that my spot was better than his mother’s since there were tons of rocks that he could play in by the river. He jabbered incessantly during the entire 30-minute drive.

  “What if we see a water moccasin?” Oliver asked.

  “I don’t think we will, but if we do, we’ll stay away from it,” I said. I could see his big blue eyes in the rearview mirror.

  “What color are water moccasins?” he asked.

  “I think they’re dark brown – almost black.”

  “Do water moccasins swim on top of the water or under the water?”

  “Both.”

  “Well then I’m not getting in the water. No way!” he said, shaking his head.

  “We’ll stay where it’s safe,” I assured him.

  “How do you know w
here it’s safe?”

  “Well, water moccasins like to hang out in brush and sticks and sometimes under big rocks,” I explained.

  “Then I can’t play in the rocks,” he said deflated.

  “Yeah, you can. You just have to play in the safe rocks.”

  “How do I know which ones are safe?”

  “I’ll tell you.”

  “How many safe rocks are there?”

  “Cut it out, Oliver!”

  Maddie laughed out loud and turned around to face the back seat. “Let’s play the quiet game for a couple of minutes,” she suggested.

  When she turned back around she was still laughing.

  “Is he doing that to irritate me?” I asked her.

  “No. He’s just very curious,” she said.

  I hadn’t spoken to Maddie about the tape we’d found of her at Datacare or of the mirror in the ladies’ restroom. I knew how mad she was going to be and I’d had so much to deal with on the Landra front that I hadn’t gotten up the nerve to broach the subject. But I knew I couldn’t put it off much longer, so I decided that day was as good as any.

  We pulled into the park and wound our way down the road toward the river. I parked by the restrooms and we walked down the trail, lugging all the picnic gear to a spot where a picnic table was bolted to the ground next to a bolted-down barbecue pit. The river was wide and there were a couple of enormous boulders plunked down in the middle that had dislodged from the 60-foot cliffs that bordered the opposite side of the river.

  We’d been at the park for about an hour and I’d just put the hot dogs on the grill. Oliver was playing with rocks by the river, well out of earshot. I cleared my throat and it got Maddie’s attention immediately.

  “What is it, Samuel?”

  “What is what?” I asked.

  “What is it that you have been avoiding telling me for the last four or five days?”

  I guess I didn’t hide my surprise very well, and I’m sure I looked guilty as hell. “What makes you say that?” I asked, genuinely keen to know how she knew I was hiding something from her.

  “I can just tell. Now come on . . . Out with it!”

  I wanted to put it as delicately as possible. “I have a tape of you in your office . . . of you . . .you know . . .” I motioned to her chest, “hooked up to that machine.” There. I said it. I caught myself holding my breath waiting for her to explode.

  “You what?” She was way too calm. Obviously she was still processing the info.

  “I found a tape of you . . .”

  “Pumping my breasts?” she finished the sentence.

  So that’s what it’s called. I flinched and nodded my head yes. I watched her face turn deep red, but I knew she wasn’t embarrassed--she was mad. In fact, I don’t know that I’d ever seen a woman so furious. She was looking around our picnic area for something to throw. If the table hadn’t been nailed down, I’m positive she would have up-ended it, but as it was, that wasn’t an option.

  “I’ll kill him,” she said. She had balled her hand up into a fist and, for lack of a better target, she was looking at me like she wanted to hit me. I thought maybe I should let her, but I knew that as mad as she was she wouldn’t hold back and it would hurt like hell.

  “Do you want to hit me?” I offered reluctantly.

  “No, I don’t want to hit you, you idiot! What good would that do?”

  “Don’t call me an idiot. And don’t act like the thought never occurred to you. I could tell by the look on your face that that’s exactly what you wanted to do!”

  “Oh shut up, Samuel!” she said, and she turned away from the confrontation.

  I wasn’t about to let it go at that. I surprised her from behind, and picked her up and started carrying her towards the river.

  “Put me down!” she yelled. She was kicking her feet and squirming in my arms trying to get free, but I was way too strong for her. I gripped her tighter.

  “Damn it, Samuel! Put me down!”

  Maddie’s yelling captured Oliver’s attention and he was watching with curiosity as I carried his mother, kicking and screaming, closer to the water’s edge. He came over and fell in stride beside me.

  “Where are you taking my mom?” he asked.

  “She wants to go swimming,” I said.

  “Samuel, stop!” Maddie shouted. She was laughing now, but she was fighting like crazy to get away. I squeezed tighter--she wasn’t going anywhere. We’d come to the water’s edge at a spot where the river was clear and deep.

  “Hey Oliver, take her shoes off,” I said. She stopped kicking long enough for Oliver to get her shoes off and get back out of the way. “Good mom,” I told her.

  Then Maddie changed tacks. Instead of fighting to get away, she clutched on to me for dear life, wrapping herself around me so tightly that there was no way I could peel her off to get her into the water. So I jumped . . .

  I heard Maddie screaming as we hit the water with a huge splash. It was freezing. When I came to the surface, Oliver was on the riverbank, jumping up and down, laughing and clapping. Maddie had already surfaced and she was pushing her hair off of her face.

  “You jerk!” She swam over to me and dunked my head under, putting all of her weight into it trying to keep me down, but I locked my arms around her waist, demobilizing her. I was laughing so hard I swallowed a whole mouthful of river water. The thought of contracting typhoid crossed my mind, but I decided it would have been worth it, just to see the look on Maddie’s face right before she hit the water.

  We swam to a shallow section of the river and waded over to the bank. Maddie was ahead of me and she turned around once she got to the side and shoved me back down in the water before she got out. Oliver met us back at the shallow end, wearing a huge smile. I got out and lay down on the rocks, still laughing, and Maddie came and stood over me, dripping wet. At least she wasn’t mad about the tape any more. She sat down beside me and shoved my head to the side and I swatted her hand away. I couldn’t look at her without laughing. She picked up a rock and tried to skip it, but it sunk straight to the bottom as soon as it hit the water.

  “That’s not how you do it,” I told her. I found a good flat rock and flicked it into the river. It skidded across the top of the water, at least a half-dozen skips before it disappeared. I looked at her and smiled.

  “Okay, smarty-pants,” she said. She searched around for the right rock and when she found it, she looked over at me and smirked. I smirked back. She flicked her wrist and the damn rock skipped a good ten times across the river until it hit the bank on the other side.

  “Yea, mom!” Oliver yelled.

  “Humph.” I didn’t even realize I had done it, but Maddie seized upon it immediately.

  “Did you humph me?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “You humphed me.”

  “I did not.”

  “You did too. You can’t stand to be upstaged by a woman,” she asserted.

  She was right, but no way was I wasn’t going to fess-up to the accusation. I was getting ready to ask if she wanted to go for another swim, when I smelled something burning.

  “The hot dogs!” I jumped up and raced back to our picnic area where smoke was billowing from the barbecue pit. Oliver was right behind me; Maddie bringing up the rear. I picked up a water bottle and squirted the flaming dogs and there was a hissing sound as the water snuffed the fire. The three of us peered into the grill at what was left of the hotdogs. They were charred and shriveled, not the least bit appetizing.

  “You burned the hotdogs,” Oliver said.

  “No kidding,” I told him. “It’s your mom’s fault.”

  “My fault?” Maddie exclaimed. She was standing there still dripping, looking really cute with her wet hair, and for some reason I felt a surge of admiration for her. I smiled at her and put my arm around her shoulder and squeezed her, but she pushed me away.

  We started over on the dogs and Oliver went back down to play in the rocks. For a while, n
either Maddie nor I was talking, but the silence wasn’t awkward. I was thinking about where to go with Maddie’s case, and I’m sure she was thinking about the tape. After a while she brought up the subject.

  “Okay,” she sighed. “I think I’ve settled down enough to discuss the tape rationally.” She crossed her arms, bracing herself for the worst, and it made me smile. “How’d you get it?” she asked.

  “Niki and I broke into Datacare the other night.”

  Her eyes got real big. “You what!”

  “You heard me.”

  “You realize that if you’d been caught you could have lost your license to practice law?”

  “Well I didn’t get caught, did I?”

  She shook her head. “That Niki Lautrec is a bad influence. You should stay away from him.”

  “Agreed.”

  I related our caper and about Niki and I finding the tapes in Larry’s office. Angry women scare me, especially when I’m the only one around for them to take it out on, so I was hesitant to bring up the ladies restroom matter, but I knew I didn’t have a choice.

  “Which restroom do you use at work?” I asked nervously. She knew immediately that something was up. Her eyes narrowed and she kind of pursed her lips, glaring at me. Damn.

  “What is it? Does the son of a bitch have a camera in the ladies room too?”

  I shook my head no. “A two-way mirror. In the CEO’s office.”

  “You’re fucking kidding!”

  I’d never heard her use the word before and it added tremendous oomph to her statement. For some reason I felt that surge of pride again. She wasn’t going to lie down and take a beating . . . not this girl. I had to try to hide my smile - heaven forbid she think I was laughing at her - so I turned around to check the dogs.

  “He watched us going to the bathroom?” she asked in disbelief.

  “Apparently.”

  She actually started laughing, but I knew she didn’t think it was the least bit funny. “What a pervert!” she said. “That’s just sick. What kind of a person does that?”

  “One who’s going to make us very rich. How many women use that restroom?”

  “I don’t know. Probably four or five. Maybe six.”